Your Creative Partner

A Chicago web and graphic design company

Category: ecommerce

Giving a website a facelift is quite possibly my favorite type of web design work. As much as I love designing websites from scratch, there is something very gratifying about taking something that is a little worn and faded and injecting some much needed love into it!

That is exactly what I have done with In the Barn Treasures, an online country decor eCommerce site. I mentioned them a few weeks ago, they are my first new local client since relocating to Lancaster PA.

Here is the home page of their new site

and before we dig into what I did lets take a quick look at the before

Clearly there is a huge visual improvement but this project was not all about producing a better looking site. We wanted to address a number of issue

Search Engine Optimization

We started with extensive of behind the scenes work addressing search engine optimization. The site is built on Volusion but was using none of it’s built in SEO tools. After a market analysis we pulled together a list of keywords and got to work enriching the site, renaming page file names, image names, and generally working in our key words wherever appropriate. Every single product in their catalog was optimized.

Visitor Engagement

Getting a user to do what you want them to do once they reach a site is a skill. First of all you need those few vital few seconds to convince them this is a site worth looking at, so a professional enticing look and feel is a must. Then “Call to Actions” come into play. We completely reworked the content of the home page, removing a slideshow that really achieved very little in terms of usability and replacing it with distinct call to actions which directs users to the newly reworked product categories

The objective here is to give a user quick visual prompts and not make them think too much!

We also added a featured product section which is dynamically driven.

We continued improving user engagement on the category homes.The original site had tiny photographs which hardly enticed the user to click further. There was also a “landscape/portrait” mismatch.

We gave each category a simple graphic banner, a title..great for SEO and a brief introductory paragraph. Then working from the original raw product photograph we adjusted them for better exposure, resized them so all the photographs were now identical in size, gave the each a keyword rich name and uploaded everything again. The result, a much more appealing category home page with photographs that are big enough to entice further clicks.

The product pages were also enhanced with much larger photos and keyword friendly descriptions of each piece.

Internet Marketing

Once the site was in ship shape condition from a usability and SEO standpoint it was time to re-launch it to the world. It has been submitted to all the big players (and lots of little players) in the search engine world and all the products uploaded to Google Shopping

One of the things I love about my job is learning about different industries and products. Over the years I have become acquainted with industrial washing machines, airplane parts and body wipes to name a few products and gained an insight into the world of interior design, senior living services and wholesale food. It is all fascinating.

This learning journey continued when I began work on a project for OperationHeatJac. They approached me last year looking to develop an eCommerce web site to sell their very novel product – a personal radiator to be worn by staff in the operating room. I had no idea the OR was such a cold room. While the surgeons like to have the room freezing to help them remain comfortable while under stress and beat the heat kicked out by the lights, other staff members can really suffer.

The product they developed is worn around the torso and acts as a personal warming device.

It can be powered in three different ways, by rechargeable batteries, a plug-in transformer or air activated warmers.

We kicked off the project with the creation of a logo for the company which I shared here and went on to develop a very clean look for the web site.

We provided everything to get this site up and running from domain name registration, hosting, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) integration, web design and development and internet marketing. We even helped the client solve their photography issues by suggesting they purchase a dress form to display their products during the photo shoot.

Launched back in February The Body Wipe Company are already adding to their product range. Their latest offering is a make-up removing wipe – Face Print, which nicely compliments their Body Wipe range. We have updated their eCommerce site with the new products and an eye grabbing banner on the home page.